The clamor and destructive air of the Power Hall were shut out by thick, ancient doors.
Gern walked alone down a long corridor deep within the hall.
There were no earthshaking clashes from Enel and Bullet, no howls from nightmare monsters or Mythical Zoans.
There was only the soft sound of boots against the floor
and, on the walls flanking the corridor,
relief murals depicting the "Twenty Creators" founding the World Government
and bringing "peace" and "order," their imagery steeped in irony.
At the end of the corridor, the space suddenly opened up.
A circular chamber came into view, even grander and emptier than the Power Hall outside, and even more... cold and lifeless.
The chamber's dome rose impossibly high.
There were no decorations on the floor
and no furniture, sculptures, or even a single unnecessary pillar anywhere around the chamber.
That utter emptiness created a sense of absolute nothingness and suffocating, solitary grandeur.
At the very heart of the chamber, in the center of that void, stood a throne.
The Empty Throne.
It symbolized the World Government's supreme tenet and sacred lie: "Founded jointly by twenty kings, with no one permitted to sit upon it alone and rule the world."
And now.
Someone sat upon the Empty Throne, which should have remained vacant forever.
Marshall D. Teach-or rather, the body that belonged to Blackbeard.
Imu sat in an extremely relaxed, almost languid posture,
leaning against the cold metal backrest of the throne, legs spread almost carelessly.
One elbow rested on an armrest, that hand propping up the side of Imu's face,
while the fingers of the other hand intermittently
tapped lightly against the opposite armrest,
making soft tap, tap, tap sounds that rang especially clearly through the deathly silent chamber.
Around the throne's base, nineteen blades stood planted in